Hispanics Hold Key To Senate Race

December 30, 1999|By RAFAEL LORENTE Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — South Florida's Cuban-American voters, long accustomed to being courted by presidential candidates such as George Bush and Ronald Reagan, now are a coveted prize for Republican Senate hopefuls Tom Gallagher and Bill McCollum.

Gallagher, Florida's education commissioner, and McCollum, a congressman from Orlando, are visiting senior centers and holding fund-raisers in South Florida as they busily line up crucial Cuban-American supporters in their quest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Connie Mack. They have even split South Florida's Cuban-American members of Congress, with Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart supporting McCollum and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen backing Gallagher.

Democrat Bill Nelson and independent Willie Logan also are running to succeed Mack.

The chase for the Cuban-American vote could be critical. In a low-turnout Republican primary, Cuban-Americans, who typically vote in large numbers, could decide the party's nominee in a race that will help shape the balance of power in Washington after the 2000 elections.

"The swing vote could be the Hispanic vote, for sure," said Robert RodrM-mguez, a McCollum supporter and president and CEO of NatCom, a Miami marketing company. RodrM-mguez did advertising work for Xavier Suarez's mayoral campaign in 1997 and has been involved in politics for 15 years.

"It's an important group and depending on how things develop, it could be a swing group," said Marty Ryal, Gallagher's campaign manager.

Besides the two members of Congress, McCollum and Gallagher have lined up key supporters like RodrM-mguez among Miami-Dade's Cuban-American political elite.

McCollum also is supported by Ramiro Ortiz, president of SunTrust Bank of Miami and a relative newcomer to politics, who could prove a valuable fund-raising contact in the business community.

In Gallagher's corner is one of Miami's long-time Republican activists, businessman Carlos Salman. In addition to being the former head of the county Republican Party, Salman is a 30-year political veteran who has known every Republican president since Richard Nixon and has the pictures in his West Miami-Dade office to prove it.

``The Cuban vote is very traditional and for years and years and years they've been voting for [Gallagher] and I don't think they're going to change that now," said Salman, sitting among his collection of photographs. In one, Salman is having lunch with Reagan at La Esquina de Tejas in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood.

Dario Moreno, a political science professor at Florida International University, said the Cuban-American vote could make the difference in statewide primaries.

"That bloc is incredibly important in Republican primaries," Moreno said. "First of all, they tend to vote monolithically."

That was the case in 1994 when Jeb Bush won 70 percent of the Cuban-American vote in a gubernatorial primary against Gallagher, Ander Crenshaw and Jim Smith, Moreno said.

In the race between Gallagher and McCollum, Moreno thinks Gallagher has the advantage among Cuban-Americans.

Moreno said Gallagher's 12 years as a state legislator from Miami-Dade County and his five previous appearances on statewide ballots in runs for governor, insurance commissioners and education commissioner give him a name recognition advantage in South Florida.

McCollum acknowledges he is not well known in South Florida, but thinks introductions by people such as Diaz-Balart will cure that. His supporters think Gallagher does not have the same entrenched popularity among Cuban-Americans as Bush, Mack and Sen. Bob Graham.

"I have a record in Congress that I think is appealing to Cuban-Americans and other Hispanics," said McCollum, in South Florida this month raising money and building contacts.

But his record could hurt him in South Florida. McCollum supported the Republican Contract with America, which featured a provision that denied welfare benefits and food stamps to legal immigrants.

Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart both refused to sign the contract because of the provisions.

"The fact that McCollum supported these measures, which are very unpopular in the Cuban community, will make it difficult for him," Moreno said.

But Diaz-Balart said McCollum "has become a very strong voice for reasonable immigration reform."

In fact, McCollum now says the 1996 changes in the law went too far in some ways to restrict the rights of immigrants. He has co-sponsored several bills with Diaz-Balart that would soften the blow. The change goes hand in hand with McCollum's efforts to portray himself as a moderate who would fit the mold of Florida's senators -- Mack, a Republican, and Graham, a Democrat -- and not as the conservative ideologue who led the impeachment charge against President Clinton.

"He's going to adopt the Connie Mack platform," RodrM-mguez said of McCollum. "His entire position is that he's going to be the best successor to Connie Mack."